Australia's Harry Redford Cattle Drive is low on comfort but high on glorious scenery

ONCE A YEAR, would-be drovers can follow in the footsteps of one of Australia's most notorious cattle rustlers across some of the most gorgeous countryside on earth. Just don't expect feather beds—you'll be sleeping in a swag.

A swag is not, as I'd fondly imagined, a hotel room. In Queensland, it's not even a bag for burglars. It's a canvas-covered sleeping bag and mine was rolled out on the dusty floor of a sheep barn on a farm in the middle of the outback. We'd been promised al fresco sleeping and campfires but an unseasonable deluge had put a stop to that. Outside, rain had turned the farmyard into a quagmire of mud but the inclement weather did nothing to dampen spirits among my fellow drovers, who were now swigging beer in a machinery shed, watched by a trio of bemused sheep.

Scene and Herd

Most drovers ride behind the herd, with the boss drover at the front to slow it down. Harry Redford Cattle Drive

We had arrived to join the Harry Redford Cattle Drive, named after a notorious 19th-century cattle rustler and folk hero, for the last leg of a 200-kilometer journey from Lake Dunn to the tiny town of Aramac in central Queensland. We'd passed through the town center earlier in the day, its pastel-colored houses obscured by driving rain, before sloshing along a muddy red gravel trail to the farm.

The drive is an annual event, set up as part of Queensland's centenary celebrations in 2002 and kept alive by enthusiastic volunteers ever since. It's not, strictly speaking, a real cattle drive (our herd would return to their home pastures once they reached Aramac) but it does keep the spirit—and memory—of Australia's cowboy past alive. That's not to say you won't find yourself a real, fair-dinkum cowboy, however. For boss drover Chook Hayes, a spell wandering the countryside with a swag and 620 cows was business as usual.

After an evening spent tucking into a billy of beef stew and several plastic mugs of port, we curled up in our swags, listening to the rain clattering on the barn's tin roof and hoping for better weather in the morning. We were in luck. Dawn brought a peach-and-yellow sunrise across a clean, pale-blue sky. I scraped my hair back and tucked it under a straw cowboy hat before wandering off to the machinery barn for some breakfast. The camp was quiet: most of the drovers had already taken off to meet the herd, and I was late. After several mugs of billy tea, I was ready to meet my horse—a grumpy dark bay thoroughbred called Pistol Pete.

Even though I grew up around horses, Pete proved a challenge. He was not, it turned out, a big fan of cows. As we ambled along at the head of a milling herd of 600 reddish-brown Brahmans, he would flick his mahogany ears in irritation and lash out with a hind leg. Most of the time, there would be an audible thump and a moo of pain as the unlucky cow reeled away. I groaned inwardly and nudged him on, out of range, before resuming a bovine plod through the scrubby grass of the Mitchell Downs.

Behind me, Chook rode back and forth on his chestnut gelding, a gray 10-gallon hat marking him out, making sure the herd moved slowly and ate plenty of roughage. In theory, I should have been helping, but not wanting to risk another kicking episode, I was happy to sit back and enjoy the view. Every now and then, a kangaroo would hop by, mostly Eastern Greys, though I did spot a few pint-size wallaroos nibbling at tufts of gray-green weed. A pair of emus appeared, shaggy gray feathers flying as they strode through the rugged bush, a cloud of dust and flying tumbleweed left in their wake. I could see why Chook had chosen to make his life in this isolated but strikingly beautiful terrain.

By lunchtime, we had done 13 kilometers and were ravenous. Luckily for us, a covered wagon pulled by a placid Clydesdale called Chester had trotted on ahead and set up camp on the crest of a hill. After hobbling Pistol Pete and leaving him munching on the grass in our makeshift corral, I headed down to join the rest of the drovers for more billy tea and some sandwiches. Despite aching muscles, everyone was in a good mood and looking forward to the kilometers ahead. And there were plenty to come. Aramac was well out of sight and there were days of riding to go. Heaven, I thought to myself—even if it did mean a few more nights in a swag.

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